" But then again, people trust WolfGang Puck's name."
I saw him once on the food network, out and about buying things at a market. To everyone he met, he kept saying "Do you know who I am? I'm Wolfgang Puck!" and no one seemed to have any idea who the guy was or why he was talking to them.
It does influence our youth. It devalues life and respect. Then you get more divorce,
No, it couldn't be the Women's lib movement of the 70s could it? That women wanted to be freer and treated as equals, and alot of men couldn't adjust to that demand, could it? Or the fact that wife abuse was outted and now more women are leaving abusive men, could that be part of it too? No, it HAS to be TV. Idiot.
Also check out http://www.divorcereform.org/94staterates.html fo r state-by-state divorce rates.
lowest: Massa-"gay marriage"-chusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Rhode Island, New York.
"There's an opinion that says, if Islam had become the major religion of the world, and Christianity the minor one, then we'd have christian Bin Laden's out there.."
I wasn't aware that a religion with over 1 billion followers was considered to be "minor."
"No patent or copyright holder should be permitted to withhold the use of an idea from someone else who is willing to pay a royalty to use it or sell a product based on it."
I invent a cure for cancer. You're willing to pay a royalty to use it: one dollar, and not a penny more. I think I should be allowed to withhold the usage of my idea, if you're not going to give me a fair offer.
Alternately, I invent a cure for cancer. Anyone who wants to use my idea is free to, as long as they pay me a royalty... of one hundred trillion dollars. Obviously this has the effect of excluding anyone else from using my invention.
Who is to determine what is a fair amount for the royalty to be paid, and at what point the inventor is allowed to refuse the offer, or is forced to accept the offer?
"but I don't think anyone can use the stats to show why the Electoral college protects the small states. The numbers above disprove that theory."
I tried to find the link but I was unable to...
one thing that I've read was that if you take the X number of smallest states needed to get to 270 electoral votes, and figure that the candidate wins with 50%+1 vote, you end up with something like the electoral college winner only gets something like 25% of the popular votes. (not that popular vote actually means anything in our system, but still...)
Also, a voter in Wyoming's vote may be worth 1/X electoral votes, while a voter in California's vote may only be worth 1/(5X) of an electoral vote. So each individual voter in a small state has more sway over who becomes president than those in a large state.
The members of the electoral college are under no law that controls their vote.
Well, that's not exactly true. It depends on the state.
Some states threaten the electors with penalties if they don't vote along with the popular vote of the state. (Whether or not any of them are actually punished is another story.)
Other states allow the electors to vote for whoever they want.
As you can see this treaty was never violated. Add to that the fact that the nation we signed the treaty with no longer even existed and your argument falls short.
In fairness to the original poster, I don't believe they said the treaties were "violated." They used the word "revoked."
So, the terms of the treaty you used as an example do allow withdrawl from the treaty. However, when many treaties are revoked, even if perfectly legal according to the terms of the treaty, it does give the impression of an unwillingness to cooperate with the international community.
So I don't think it makes the original poster's entire point invalid.
This comment isn't really a reply to this specific post of yours, but in general to the thread regarding minimum wage.
It's clear you're an opponent of minimum wage laws. Remember that these laws did not always exist- they are a relatively recent invention, so it's rather simple to look to history to see the effects of an absence of minimum wage laws.
It wasn't exactly good times all around.
Basically, there's a reason these minimum wage laws were enacted: left to its own devices, the free labor market produces universally horrible working conditions for crap pay.
Or for a more modern perspective, look at the working conditions of illegal immigrants now- people without the protection of labor laws.
Maybe if the Democrats would have put someone other than Mr. Empty Suit up, the election would have turned out different.
Kerry may not have been the best choice for getting the president unseated, but don't forget he was still able to get more votes than anyone else in history... except for Bush.
This is also much of the reasoning why I disagree with the politicians who decided to put gay marriage ammendments (and civil unions) on the ballots this year.
As it turns out, it seems this was a well crafted scheme by the republicans to mobilize their base of homophobic bigots, and while they're at the polls, they can go ahead and vote for Bush... seems like it worked like a charm in Ohio and other areas.
Gotta hand it to them though- it was diabolically brilliant.
That's pretty much how I see warranties as well- which is why I think 90 days seems like an unusually short time to claim as the expected lifespan of an XBox.
I'm not saying they need to give it a lifetime guarantee or anything, but a reasonable person should assume that an XBox will last longer than three months.
Please define your use of "unreasonable timeframe." According to Microsoft, that timeframe is 90 days
So basically Microsoft is saying that all you can expect out of your XBox is a lifespan of 3 months, and anything over that, you're playing with borrowed time?
gist of this argument is that the earth is in fact only 6000 years old
I've heard this argument before, but I never knew the history of it.
By the logic presented in that argument, the earth could have been created 5 minutes ago, with all of our memories already implanted, everything created as-is, etc. So how did they come up with the 6000 year old figure?
Also, a more philisophical question would by why God would go through all this trouble to fool us into thinking the world was older than it actually was?
Slashdot Mirror
" But then again, people trust WolfGang Puck's name."
I saw him once on the food network, out and about buying things at a market. To everyone he met, he kept saying "Do you know who I am? I'm Wolfgang Puck!" and no one seemed to have any idea who the guy was or why he was talking to them.
It was hilarious.
It does influence our youth. It devalues life and respect. Then you get more divorce,
o r state-by-state divorce rates.
No, it couldn't be the Women's lib movement of the 70s could it? That women wanted to be freer and treated as equals, and alot of men couldn't adjust to that demand, could it? Or the fact that wife abuse was outted and now more women are leaving abusive men, could that be part of it too? No, it HAS to be TV. Idiot.
Also check out http://www.divorcereform.org/94staterates.html
f
lowest: Massa-"gay marriage"-chusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Rhode Island, New York.
highest: Nevada, Arkansas, Oklahoma,Tennessee, Wyoming.
I love pulling out that little gem on the fundies.
or pay a monstrous heating bill.
The good news: you won't be paying a huge heating bill.
The bad news: wait til you see your air conditioning bill.
Enjoy your 140 degree summers!
(I loaded trucks in Indy for a year, and it's mundane enough that you actually read the labels sometimes).
That's funny... I always thought you guys passed the time playing soccer with the boxes.
there were suggestions that conservative-leaning people may be far less likely to share their votes with exit pollsters than liberal-leaning people
Makes sense- I know if I voted Republican, I'd be ashamed to let anyone know, too.
"There's an opinion that says, if Islam had become the major religion of the world, and Christianity the minor one, then we'd have christian Bin Laden's out there.."
I wasn't aware that a religion with over 1 billion followers was considered to be "minor."
"No patent or copyright holder should be permitted to withhold the use of an idea from someone else who is willing to pay a royalty to use it or sell a product based on it."
I invent a cure for cancer. You're willing to pay a royalty to use it: one dollar, and not a penny more. I think I should be allowed to withhold the usage of my idea, if you're not going to give me a fair offer.
Alternately, I invent a cure for cancer. Anyone who wants to use my idea is free to, as long as they pay me a royalty... of one hundred trillion dollars. Obviously this has the effect of excluding anyone else from using my invention.
Who is to determine what is a fair amount for the royalty to be paid, and at what point the inventor is allowed to refuse the offer, or is forced to accept the offer?
"You're not pushing ahead until you do something NEW. And the Chinese and Indians haven't done that."
It's new for *them*
I think that's the important thing.
If you can't spell "John Kerry and John Edwards" or "George Bush and Dick Cheney", perhaps your vote is better off uncounted.[3]
I hope in your alternative universe,
Mieczyslaw Krzyzewski never runs for president.
"but I don't think anyone can use the stats to show why the Electoral college protects the small states. The numbers above disprove that theory."
I tried to find the link but I was unable to...
one thing that I've read was that if you take the X number of smallest states needed to get to 270 electoral votes, and figure that the candidate wins with 50%+1 vote, you end up with something like the electoral college winner only gets something like 25% of the popular votes.
(not that popular vote actually means anything in our system, but still...)
Also, a voter in Wyoming's vote may be worth 1/X electoral votes, while a voter in California's vote may only be worth 1/(5X) of an electoral vote. So each individual voter in a small state has more sway over who becomes president than those in a large state.
(I don't have the exact figures in front of me.)
The nearest McDonald's is 35 miles away and I've never even been tempted to stop there.
well, McDonalds isn't exactly the kind of place you travel 35 miles to get to. People eat McDonalds when they have $4 and 5 minutes to spare.
If candidate A gets the top 11 most populous states, it doesn't matter that candidate B gets the other 40
Actually it is the least populous states that have a disproportionately large share of the electoral votes when compared to their population.
It forces candidates to go after voters across the nation/gives all states a say in the election.
I see... this way the candidates can't just focus on a few states; say Ohio, Florida, Wisconsin, Michigan, etc.
"You've got Kerry in office viewed by all of Bush's supporters as illegitimate. "
We just had 4 years of a president that nearly half of all Americans viewed as illegitimate, and that didn't turn him into a lame duck.
The members of the electoral college are under no law that controls their vote.
Well, that's not exactly true.
It depends on the state.
Some states threaten the electors with penalties if they don't vote along with the popular vote of the state. (Whether or not any of them are actually punished is another story.)
Other states allow the electors to vote for whoever they want.
As you can see this treaty was never violated. Add to that the fact that the nation we signed the treaty with no longer even existed and your argument falls short.
In fairness to the original poster, I don't believe they said the treaties were "violated." They used the word "revoked."
So, the terms of the treaty you used as an example do allow withdrawl from the treaty. However, when many treaties are revoked, even if perfectly legal according to the terms of the treaty, it does give the impression of an unwillingness to cooperate with the international community.
So I don't think it makes the original poster's entire point invalid.
This comment isn't really a reply to this specific post of yours, but in general to the thread regarding minimum wage.
It's clear you're an opponent of minimum wage laws.
Remember that these laws did not always exist- they are a relatively recent invention, so it's rather simple to look to history to see the effects of an absence of minimum wage laws.
It wasn't exactly good times all around.
Basically, there's a reason these minimum wage laws were enacted: left to its own devices, the free labor market produces universally horrible working conditions for crap pay.
Or for a more modern perspective, look at the working conditions of illegal immigrants now- people without the protection of labor laws.
Is that the capitalist ideal you're going for?
Maybe if the Democrats would have put someone other than Mr. Empty Suit up, the election would have turned out different.
Kerry may not have been the best choice for getting the president unseated, but don't forget he was still able to get more votes than anyone else in history... except for Bush.
If you allow nuclear reactor operators to reprocess waste in a manner that Al Gore had banned when he was in the Senate....
Wow, I didn't realize Al Gore ruled the United States by royal decree from the Senate.
This is also much of the reasoning why I disagree with the politicians who decided to put gay marriage ammendments (and civil unions) on the ballots this year.
As it turns out, it seems this was a well crafted scheme by the republicans to mobilize their base of homophobic bigots, and while they're at the polls, they can go ahead and vote for Bush... seems like it worked like a charm in Ohio and other areas.
Gotta hand it to them though- it was diabolically brilliant.
Do you understand now why we (the majority of Americans) don't give a rat's ass what you think of us?
I get it now: 51% of us are morons.
I think if you are for Bush, you are probably a little more inclined to decline or lie
I'd be more afraid of being rounded up by Bush's secret police if I indicated I was for Kerry.
That is pretty much how I see warrenties.
That's pretty much how I see warranties as well- which is why I think 90 days seems like an unusually short time to claim as the expected lifespan of an XBox.
I'm not saying they need to give it a lifetime guarantee or anything, but a reasonable person should assume that an XBox will last longer than three months.
Please define your use of "unreasonable timeframe." According to Microsoft, that timeframe is 90 days
So basically Microsoft is saying that all you can expect out of your XBox is a lifespan of 3 months, and anything over that, you're playing with borrowed time?
gist of this argument is that the earth is in fact only 6000 years old
I've heard this argument before, but I never knew the history of it.
By the logic presented in that argument, the earth could have been created 5 minutes ago, with all of our memories already implanted, everything created as-is, etc. So how did they come up with the 6000 year old figure?
Also, a more philisophical question would by why God would go through all this trouble to fool us into thinking the world was older than it actually was?